The Gallaghers of Ardmore Trilogy

blouse.
    He’d handled that well, Shawn congratulated himself. Friendly, a sort of older brother to younger sister kind of thing. He was sure the little crisis had passed. And it was really rather sweet that she’d thought of him the way she had. A man had to be flattered, especially since he’d slipped through those sticky loops with no harm done.
    But deciding a bit of backup wouldn’t be out of order, he dipped into Saint Declan’s Well and sprinkled the water on the ground.
    “Superstitious? A modern-thinking man?”
    Shawn’s head came up, and his eyes met the clever blue ones of Carrick, prince of the faeries. “A modernthinking man knows there’s a reason for superstitions, especially when he stands and finds himself having a conversation with the likes of you.”
    Since he’d come for a purpose, Shawn walked away from the well and over to Maude’s grave. “So, tell me, are you always here and about? I’ve come to this spot all my life, and it’s only recently I’ve seen you.”
    “There was no particular reason for you to see me before recently. I’ve a question for you, Shawn Gallagher, and I’m hoping you’ll be answering it.”
    “Well, you have to ask it first.”
    “So I will.” Carrick sat by the grave across from Shawn so their eyes were level. “What the bleeding, blistering hell are you waiting for?”
    Shawn raised his eyebrows, rested his hands on his knees. “All manner of things.”
    “Oh, that’s typical of you.” Disgust edged Carrick’s voice. “I’m speaking of Mary Brenna O’Toole, and why you haven’t taken her to your bed.”
    “That would be between Brenna and myself,” Shawn said evenly, “and no concern of yours.”
    “Of course it’s a concern of mine.” Carrick was on his feet now, the movement too fast for the human eye to catch. The ring on his finger glowed a deep, deep blue, and the silver pouch hanging from his belt glittered. “I judged you to have the kind of nature that would understand, but you’re more boneheaded than even your brother.”
    “Sure and you aren’t the first to say so.”
    “It’s in place, Gallagher the younger.”
    Because Carrick was now standing beside Shawn rather than across from him, Shawn got to his feet. “And what would that be?”
    “Your part, your destiny. Your choices. How is it you can look into your heart for making your music, and not for living your life?”
    “My life is as I like it.”
    “Boneheaded,” Carrick said again. “Finn protect me from the foolishness of mortals.” He threw up his hands, and thunder rumbled across the clear bowl of the sky.
    “If you think to impress me with parlor tricks, you won’t succeed at it. That’s just your temper talking, and I’ve one of my own.”
    “Would you dare match it to mine?” As a demonstration, Carrick waved a finger, and a bolt of blinding white light lanced into the ground in front of Shawn’s feet.
    “Bully tactics.” Though Shawn had to fight the instinct to leap back. “And unworthy of you.”
    Fury turned Carrick’s eyes nearly black, trembled from his fingertips in little licks of red flame. Then subsided as he threw back his head and laughed. “Well, now, you’ve more courage than I gave you credit for. Or it’s just stupid you are.”
    “Wise enough to know you can cause mischief if you like, but no real harm. You don’t worry me, Carrick.”
    “I could have you on your knees croaking like a bullfrog.”
    “Which would hurt my pride but little else.” Not, Shawn thought, that he wanted to put the matter to the test. “What’s the point of this? Threats don’t endear you to me.”
    “I’ve waited six of your lifetimes for something you could have in an instant, just by holding out your hand.” But this time he sighed. “Tears from the moon I gathered for her the second time.” As he spoke he took the pouch from his belt. “And at her feet I poured the pearls they formed. And all she saw was the pearls.”
    Turning the pouch over, he poured a white waterfall of glowing white gems onto Maude’s grave. “They glowed in the grass, in the moonlight then, white and smooth as Gwen’s skin. But she didn’t see that it wasn’t pearls I’d poured at her feet, but my heart—the longing in it, and aye, the purity of that love as well. I didn’t know she needed to be told, or that it was already too late, as I hadn’t given her the part of me she wanted.”
    Carrick’s voice was full of despair now, and so